With the final out, Falcon baseball players rushed to the pitching mound, throwing themselves on top of one another, yelling and cheering in celebration of winning the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference title 9-0 and 4-1 against Tabor College May 1.

As the Falcons took the field with a lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, players in the dugout started to take off their cleats and put on regular tennis shoes.

“We don’t want to hurt anyone when we charge the mound,” they kept saying with anticipation.

With two outs and Bluejays on second and third, junior closer Jon Qualls threw the final pitch that was hit to third baseman Chris Fox.  Fox, who bobbled a ground ball earlier in the inning, fielded the hit with ease and made the throw to first for the final out.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” coach Mark Carvalho said. 

The Falcons grew into a huge mound of bodies as players from the outfield belly-flopped on top to complete the pile. 

The Falcons were officially the KCAC champs.

“I was nervous because I had never been in that situation before,” senior center fielder Cody Hunter said.  “Winning it all is just amazing.”

The Falcons have come a long way in the past three year.  In 2002, the Falcons were 15-23 overall.  But things started to come around for the Falcons in 2003 with an overall record of 23-21, but they finished the season one pitch away from a regional appearance.

This season the Falcons were hungry for more.  They are currently 35-12 overall and 17-6 in the conference.

“We started the core for this team last season (2003),” senior outfielder Brian Ayers said.  “We just didn’t have the depth in pitching, fielding and hitting to go along with it.”

Carvalho agreed and is excited for the players who went through the tough seasons. <img src = "http://studentweb.friends.edu/crimsonchronicle/Upload/wetcarv2.jpg" align = "right">

With a deeper pitching staff and a deep bench, the Falcons have been able to turn this season around.

The Falcons broke the record for the number of wins in one season previously set at 29 by the 1996 team which was the last to attend regionals. 

Junior starting pitcher Jason Stuart broke the season record wins of nine and currently has 10 wins.  Qualls broke the career number of saves of nine and currently has 14 saves. 

With conference behind them, the Falcons will focus on the upcoming Region IV tournament held in Bellevue, Neb., on May 12-16.

“Now we have to forget the conference and start over,” Carvalho said.

With teams still competing this weekend to make it into the tournament, the schedule has not been finalized, but Friends, Dana College and Bellevue University will be there.

“As long as we stay within our game, we will continue to be successful,” Hunter said.

Bellevue, the host for the tournament, are the eight-time defending champions in the regional tournament.  A team will eventually beat Bellvue and the Falcons should be that team, Carvalho said. 

The winner of regionals will continue on and play the winner of the Region III tournament in the best two of three in super-regionals the following weekend.  The winner of super-regionals will continue on to the World Series May 28- June 4 at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.

The Falcons set numerous goals in the beginning of the season and winning conference was one of them, Ayers said.